April fool - and my blog starts here
It would be an understatement to say that getting my website off the ground has been a slow process; probably three years of slow in fact. I started with good intentions but a multitude of life events, including the mundane, seemed to get in the way, or at least I allowed them to.
So what is to come?
To make amends I will try to add an entry here more regularly. I won’t attempt to retrospectively blog about all my photography escapades over the last three years. Some of these are already documented on my YouTube channel. However, the latter usually cover special photography trips. For example, I have videos (most still needing to be edited) from locations such as Scotland, Slovenia and Madeira. As of writing, I have uploaded two from Scotland 2023 and a third is to follow. Similarly, I reckon that there will be three videos each from the other two trips (where were awesome!).
Why do I film videos (or ‘vlog’)
I enjoy taking photos; it’s a long process from scouting locations, hiking out, searching for a composition that looks ok and then going through the technical bit of dialing in camera settings before pressing the shutter. I imagine it’s a bit like fishing – most days you come back with nothing. But its therapeutic. Videography is more difficult!
The videos you might see from me are not posted because I am an egotistical individual or someone who has misplaced ambitions to be a social media star. I just enjoy the process, and nothing gave me more of a sense of fulfilment than when I’d show a video to my best fan and harshest critic, my late mum.
There are so many videos that I never published and were only shown to my mum. During her final weeks and months in hospital when I’d visit her daily, usually twice a day, I’d take my laptop and after a chat I’d ask her if she’d like to watch a video – of somewhere beautiful and of nature – not of the inside walls of a hospital ward. Some days she’d have the strength to watch and some days, increasingly so, she’d not have the strength.
“My photography and the odd video are a form of therapy and escapism to me ”
My photography and the odd video are a form of therapy and escapism to me – from the mundane day to day challenges of this fast paced and crazy world but also from some of the more challenging times, such as my mum’s final journey.
Link to my Scotland playlistWhy are your videos so infrequent?
For one, I am an amateur who does not rely on regularly uploading YouTube videos as a means to make money, which is very fortunate really, given the mediocrity of them.
Many of the YouTube videos that I uploaded in 2023 were not very recent. A number were from the end of 2021 - filmed in Scotland between Christmas 2021 and over New Year 2022, after my mum had died and the draw of escaping to somewhere remote and wild was strong. Part of the reason for the delay was my not being in the habit of editing videos and my lack of experience in recording them to ensure smooth continuity. One video typically takes me 16 hours of work – that’s a lot of house work I could be getting on with in the same time!
“One video typically takes me 16 hours of work – that’s a lot of house work I could be getting on with in the same time!”
Ironically, I next returned to Scotland in July 2023 and, whilst still excruciatingly slow, I have managed to upload two of my three videos from there relatively quickly. The third is at my favourite location of the trip and will soon be uploaded. It was a pure joy in a remote location, full of nature and a sort of spiritual calmness – perhaps no surprise that it was close to an old church.
What is scheduled for 2024?
Trips
I have more photo trips planned but I am also in the process of a house move (I think I already mentioned about mundane things getting in the way)! Further details to follow on trips.
I will make sure that I write a blog entry for each of the trips to provide some extra context and story behind those experiences. In the meantime, I’ll start regularly posting entries on some of my current experiences.
Project 35
This is a relatively new idea for me, though no doubt it’s been done a thousand times by others. Basically, it is a project consisting of landscape and street photography taken with a 35mm prime lens.
I had been toying with the idea of simplifying my photography and experimenting with some ‘old school’ prime lenses, with an eye on quality Carl Zeiss glass. For clarity, my main lens set-up comprises the Holy Trinity of lenses for landscape photography and each is a zoom covering ultra wide to telescopic focal lengths.
I had never really tried prime lenses seriously and so, decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a Zeiss 35mm. Now, Zeiss do not manufacture lenses for the Canon R mount system so I opted for a Zeiss 35 Biogon F/2.8 prime lens. This is designed for the Leica M mount system and so I also bought a M to RF mount adapter.
A further consequence of this choice is that focus is fully manual, though my CanonR6 (like most modern mirrorless cameras) has focus assist via the electronic view finder (EVF) or LCD display. Both focus and aperture settings are dialed in via the lens rings rather than via the camera controls. It is certainly a more tactile, and dare I say authentic, experience.
It is very early days but I will share more soon. Meanwhile, here is one random image that I took at a village in the Peak District National Park in the UK.
